


Lady "Tex" Vorpatril's Interview

by Zoya1416



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: CVA SPOILERS, F/M, Gossip magazine, Lady Tej is Lady Tex, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S ALLIANCE, Newlywed Vors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1922052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The VorTattler interviews Lady Vorpatril after she and Lord Ivan have left Barrayar.</p><p>Lady Tej's name is short for Tejaswini .<br/>Tejas is the Spanish word for Texas, so we get "Tex" as a parallel abbreviation...and we go from there into a Texan point of view of CVA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady "Tex" Vorpatril's Interview

**Author's Note:**

> THIS FIC CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S ALLIANCE.  
> CVA is atypical for a Vorkosiverse book, being a light romp with many hysterical moments, many of them which I'm going to spoil here. CVA has a truly ridiculous twist at the end, which will also be referenced here. Really, if you haven't read CVA, SKIP THIS, GO TO THE LIBRARY AND READ IT FIRST.
> 
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
> 
> Also, I'm from Texas and can make these jokes. Outsiders can't.

The VorTattler catches up with Lady Vorpatril on a tropical island.

VT: We're on Ylla, the planet where Lord Ivan Vorpatril serves as the senior military attache. It's a beautiful tropical island, except that Lady Vorpatril warns us to stay out of the water. She's dressed in a white bikini, with a lacy turquoise coverup.

Lady Vorpatril: Hello, y'all. Yew want ice tea, or fruity girlie drinks?

VT: Tea would be fine, thank you, Lady Vorpatril. This is a beautiful place.

LTVP: Call me Lady Tex. Ever'one does. Yep, Ylla's purty, but I hope we kin go back to Barrayar soon. Not much out here.

VT:You and Lord Vorpatril left Barrayar very quickly after your wedding and we didn't get a chance to catch up with you then. I understand that you had known him less than three days before your marriage on Komarr. Whirlwind romance, was it?

LTVP: Welllll, sumthin' like that. My sister Rish—her name's Patricia, but we call her Rish—and I were on Komarr illegally. We were tryin' to escape bounty hunters from house Prestene. Those Komarrans are worse than Arizonans when it come to illegal immigrants. Th' bounty hunters were close after us, and thought they could snatch us from immigration. So we were in trouble. And Ivan Xav was in trouble from the Komarr Dome Security b'coz they thought I was a missing person, and that he had kidnapped me. Or murdered me.

VT: So you were at Lord Vorpatril's apartment when you got married.

LTVP: Yes. (laughs) We had the Dome Cops, immigration, and the building manager beatin' on the door. We shot up the door electronics—Komarr won't let a lady carry her pistol, so all we had was stunners. We had built up a barricade with the divans and such, and then Ivan Xav comes out with a cereal box and starts dumping it on the carpet, and asks me to marry him—right there!

I didn't know yew could get married like that, but he said it wuz a temporary marriage, and I said yes to keep from being deported and killed. (Quietly) Rish and I thought are whole fam'ly was dead.

VT: Lord Vorpatril had a book for the Barrayaran Oaths?

LTVP: No, he had'm memorized, but he started out with the one for wills, 'being of sound mind and body.' He'll hate it that I tole you (giggles) but I thought yew had to be healthy to be married, so I thought it was alright. 

VT: A little bird has told us that Lord Vorpatril didn't even know your name when he asked you to marry him.

LTVP: I'll jes bet that little bird is a worm, Byerly Vorrutyer. He was Ivan Xav's friend and he was visitin.' So he and Rish are the Witnesses, and Ivan Xav can't remember all my name. I'd told him once. (Proudly) It's Akuti Tejaswini Jyoti ghem Estif Arqua Vorpatril. I reminded him, and he dint' mess up anything.

VT: Beautiful, but quite a mouthful.

LTVP: Oh, my sister's got a long name, too: Mercedes Sofia Esperanza Juana Paloma. The Baronne calls her Mercedes. My Daddy calls her Little Wisdom, from Sofia. We kids call her Pidge.

VT: Pidge?

LTVP: Paloma means pigeon, so Pidge. And my Daddy, his real name isn't Shiv, yew know. He's been a reeell pirate, and a very tough guy. He's been in prison, yew know. And defended himself—so they call him “Shiv.”

VT: Very interesting. Did you have any nicknames?

LTVP: Shore, plenty. They called me girl-Cootie, from Akuti, or sometimes Coot. My Daddy gave me the whole long name, then he called me Joy, from Jyoti. But I jes' go by Tex, from Tejas, yew know. 

VT: I see. You and Lord Vorpatril left Komarr then, and returned to Barrayar. But you got married planning to get divorced?

LTVP: (pouts a little) Yep, that wuz th' Deal That's what we were fixin' to do. Ivan Xav said we could go to Count Falco's court and it would take ten minutes to get us free. Then I could go on wherever Rish and I decided to go.

VT: Another little bird has told us that Count Falco asked if you had grounds for divorce.

LTVP: (growls) I'll jes bet it wuz the lady lawyer who wanted Ivan Xav to ask her for a date. I thought they had attorney-client privileges here. Anyway, Count Falco asked us (counts on fingers)  
1.If we had any mutations we didn't tell the other about. I wuz gene cleaned at conception!

2.If we accused each other of adultery, or admitted to it. None of his bidness! B'sides, we'd only been married a month.

Anyway, 3.If he supported me. Of course he did! Great food, got his mother's dresser for me, great apartment.  
4.If we abused each other. (she gets up and paces on the patio.) He asked if we beat each other, or insulted each other, restricted my friends, all kinds of things! I tole him Ivan Xav got me driving lessons and lets Rish live with us. These weren't none of his business and I don't think he had any call to ask us.

5.THEN, he asked about denial of marital rights!

VT: (trying not to snicker) So that wasn't a problem either?

LTVP: No! We'd had sex that morning, and it wuz great. I tole him so! The last thing he asked is if we'd denied each other children, which I'd never thought of, so I said Ivan Xav could have some eggs if he wanted them. My mother sold eggs, when she and my Daddy were first married. When they were fixin' to raise venture capital, yew know.

VT: (stunned) Selling...eggs...? never mind.

LTVP: After all this, the Count said we had no grounds for divorce and not to bother him again unless we had some. He wouldn't divorce us! That was the DEAL.

VT: But your marriage to Lord Vorpatril came in handy when your family came.

LTVP: I thought they wuz all dead, and then they were alive. (tearing up a little) The Baronne, my Daddy, Grandmother, Star, Pidge, Em, Pearl. Even Jet and Amiri! Only Ruby, Topaz, and Erik weren't there. We didn' find out about them for awhile.

VT:If we could go back to your upbringing—another little bird— 

LTVP—it's that damn Byerly, isn't it! Jes say so. He went away with Rish, so he should be happy, but no, he gossips about everything!

VT: Well, no. (Actually, dear readers, Vortattler was given details by a person connected to one of the household the Vorpatrils visited, and that source is anonymous.) The source said that you had received...two years of sexual training, is that correct?

LTVP: Oh! That! Wellll, not two years all by myself. We had the wonderful LPST's from Beta, a man, woman, and hermaphrodite, and they were at House Cordonah for two years. But there were ten of us, and I wuz the next youngest. So I got less than two months total. It was amazing and so useful too! I don't know why ever' one here don't get the training—it was SOOO much fun practicing!

(VT clears throat, crosses legs)

LTVP: But ever'body asks about the sex training, and y'all never want to know about the weapons. I'm a rilly good shot, yew know.

VT: Care to expand on that?

LTVP: Shore. We started shooting as soon as we could handle a gun. I was five. A rifle was too big for me, but my Daddy got me a target practice pistol. I held it two hand at first, and got reel strong that way. After a year I was a crack shot, hittin' the center of the target six times out of seven. (smiles) 

Then he let all of us start on watermelon practice. He coulda got fancy heads all in super-ballistics gel. But he's always bin a sucker for the old ways. A watermelon explodes jes like a human head, yew know? My 22 rifle went up against the big kids ev'ry time.

VT: My, I didn't know you were so Barrayaran in your youth. We have a long tradition of hunting.

LTVP: (Smiles) Bet ya don't have live fire practices, though. The Baronne and my Daddy made sure we knew how to hit the ground and stay. I never got hit once, but most of the others got creased.

VT: Err, you may have a point there. Moving on. After your family returned to Barrayar, they began to plot to recover an old Cetagandan bunker where they hoped to recover treasure. Can you comment on that?

LTVP: Nope. Our settlement with The Gregor, I mean with Emperor Gregor, said we couldn't talk to y'all or anybody about this.

VT: Can you comment on your viewpoint of the standoff in the bunker, and what happened? That occurred almost in public.

LTVP: Welll—I try to f'rget most of hit.' Hit were downright turrible. I wuz skeered to death. I thought we wuz fixing' to die. I was holding on to Ivan Xav, and that wuz when I knew I loved him, truly. He was truly skeered b'cuz uv his clauster-phobia. He'll hate that I tole yew about it, but he wuz be'in brave for me. The old bomb blew up 'n' water blocked the tunnel. Air was getting' thick, until the grav-lifters got us out.

VT: (noted—Lady Tex is still very emotional about her experiences in the bunker. Her accent turned almost unintelligible.) Everyone is happy your family escaped harm. What was your viewpoint on the Impsec building catastrophe?

LTVP: I cain't comment on much, due to the settlement, but everyone is aware that our—excavation—went under the ImpSec building. The old bomb—which we did not place!— went off and shattered the tunnel wall—and also, they thannk, the storm sewer at the same time. Sooo—apparently the storm sewer drained all its water into our tunnels. It might be that the grav-lifter which got us out of the bunker shook the storm sewer, and it unblocked, carrying all the water in our tunnels away to the river. The ImpSec building pushed down on the tunnels, makin' all the water and mud squirt out into th' river, and then with nothing to support hit, jes started sinking. (giggles, hand to mouth) I know it wuz terrible, but it was also—ridicalous. That giant, ugly building—no windows, how could anyone work there?—just bloop—down she went.

VT: Yes indeed. I think the vids from that will be watched for decades to come. The VorTattler vid has excellent close-up shots.

VT: Thank you for your time. In closing, our readers always want to know some fashion or beauty tips from our celebrities. Do you have any?

LTVP: Wellll, as far as fashion goes, Ivan Xav says the less clothes the better. I'm us'ly out here in the alt'gether.(gestures to wide beach and beautiful ocean, stretches arms high, then laces hands behind head.)

VT: (gulps—that's one for the vid, boys) There you have it, readers. Our interview with the fascinating Lady Tex Vorpatril. Thank you.

LTVP: Thank yew. Y'all come back now, hear?


End file.
